


hiraeth

by cybersquatt



Series: halcyon [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Dissociation, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Uchiha Sasuke-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 06:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16012619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cybersquatt/pseuds/cybersquatt
Summary: When Sasuke is seven years old, his elder brother stares him down with the blood of his kin on his hands and tells him that he’s the one to kill him in cold blood.(Because, at age thirteen, they both learn that when a man offers peace, you give him war.)





	hiraeth

**Author's Note:**

> \- i have not finished shippuden; i just finished gaara's arc sdcnjdfvnvf this is the result of me spoiling myself and reading itachis wiki page.  
> [\- listen to sadness and sorrow while reading kthx](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H66BgQAbwU8)  
> \- thats pretty much it im sorry  
> \- EDIT 11/25/18: i've rewritten some of the scenes and added 2 (3?) new scenes to establish the relationship between sasuke and his parents a bit more! and i changed up some the wording in many scenes to sound more like sasuke. as a result, 2,000 more words have been added! i've also cleaned up the format a bit more so it's easier to read and less messy as it once was.  
> \- warning for suicide ideation and dissociation

##### i. now

Sasuke doesn't wake up.  
  
Except he does. He does but the world around him doesn't. The lines of the white walls, pale scratchy bed sheets, and the blank smell of sanitation blur together. Everything is and feels white and Sasuke feels like nothing — he feels detached. It's an unnatural emotion; it spreads its numbing hands all over him. The white surround him and wraps around him as a snake to its prey until he is a hollow blurriness himself. Thankfully, there is no red.  
  
(He sees red anyways. Every blink makes the solidity wear into nothing and all he sees is red. It seeps from the corners, the window, from his own body. [His shoulder, his shoulder, his shoulder—] But it isn't there — it never was.)

His hand clenched involuntarily. There's an unfamiliar burn in his arms and he wants to rip it out. He just wants it to _stop_.  
  
(He recollects how his mother wore a red dress the day he joined the academy. How it twisted and curls at her calves and the way she smiled with rose-colored lipstick that she wore rarely. He remembers the red ink pens his father owned, how he only used it for private letters. How it dyed the edges of his fingertips; he remembers how red stains for days to weeks and spreads till it's all you can comprehend.  
  
His mother wore a red dress as his father had dyed fingertips. As morbid as it sounds, it's fitting that they both wore red in the end.)  
  
Sasuke wakes up but his family continues to sleep.

-

#####    
-i. before

Sasuke is six years old when he sprains his ankle.  
  
Itachi carries him on his back, walking uphill on a rocky, gravely path. Sasuke can tell that Itachi's feet are starting to ache from its unpaved ground. He keeps walking despite that — Sasuke wonders how hard he trains to be a Shinobi, to be able to withstand the ache of tiny rocks against soft feet. His father always had had pride in his son for his extensive training.  
  
(Sasuke learns, as the cycles pass, that he was trained for many things. Walking on tiny pebbles while carrying his little brother was the easiest thing he ever had to do.)  
  
"You can put me down, Itachi." Sasuke murmurs into his older brother's back.  
  
Itachi doesn't let him down but instead lets out a sigh through his nose. "No can do. Mother is already planning my funeral by letting you get hurt in the first place."  
  
"She wouldn't hurt you. She and Father love you too much." Sasuke says because their mother smiles like the sun's rebirth in the early morning at her sons. Their father may not spend as much time with them as they both would like, but there are rare nights when he would sit quietly with his youngest son. And Sasuke begins to understand that the silence is his comfort.  
  
Sasuke moves his head so his ear is pressed against Itachi's back. The summer nearing autumn season leaves the hair on his arms and legs standing as the sun slowly dies out. He hears the cadence of his brother's heartbeat and closes his eyes.  
  
Itachi says a soft reminder. "They love you too, Sasuke. We all do."  
  
(The sun dies out and it's exactly one year later that Sasuke wakes up to the unsettling suffocating stillness of his childhood home [and again and again and again]. One year later and Sasuke yells into the void of his childhood home and the empty district just to fill the silence: _how could you kill them? My mother would've suffered the sun's brutal nature for you. She gave you the world so how could you push a sword into her? Was it easy? You've trained to ignore the ache of sore feet, was that enough for you to ignore her pain? Her love?_ )  
  
He is only six years old now, and when he presses his ear to listen to his brother's pulse, he wonders how far would he walk for his brother.

-

#####    
ii.

A kitten meows, sitting on his window sill.  
  
Sasuke is ten years old and the district is filled with ghosts that haunt him at night. His brother's best friend, Shisui, once told him how that 3 A.M. is the time of the night that the dead leave hell and heaven. That it's the only time that they are able to breathe in life for one hour because it's only once you're dead, you'll learn to miss how your lungs would burn when you breathe in the dead of winter's cold air. He warned that if you're not careful, they'll take everything you have out of resentment.  
  
The dead are ghosts who have hands that are wrapped in disgusting envy green roots. So, when you lose your breath under their deadly choke, all you see is what you had and what you're losing.  
  
(Shisui died sometime before the district follows. His body flowed down a river with both eyes missing and a suicide note is the only thing left for his family to collect. His brother is questioned a day later. Three years younger than he is now, Sasuke hides behind the front door when Itachi causes a crack in the Uchiha crest that lines the trims of the walls; one that haunts him at every corner. Every witness murmurs of his brother's actions but Sasuke can only think of how his eyes are no longer the same.)  
  
A kitten meows, soft and pure, and Sasuke lets her be.  
  
( _A cat,_ Shisui had said once, a hint of laughter escaping his lips and tone, _is the only protection against the dead. Remember that Sasuke when I come to haunt you, okay?_ ) _  
_  
  
  
The kitten stays. Sasuke stops feeling the cold hands of the dead at night — they may be jealous of his living state but Sasuke refuses to be robbed before he meets the eyes of his brother again.  
  
-

##### -ii.

It's nearing 12 A.M. and Itachi wakes to his brother, whose eyes are wide and scared because the dark has grips that are stronger than the marble at the bottom of the lake.  
  
"Itachi," Sasuke calls out a few minutes later, tucked in bed and studying how his brother's long hair pans out on his white pillow. "what's your favorite place?"  
  
Itachi turns around to face him. "Why do you ask?"  
  
Sasuke has always spoken in a tiny voice, something that everyone tells him to grow out of. (He doesn't until he faced too much to be intimidated by a grown up's presence.) "They asked in class, today. I didn't know which one to choose so I said the lake."  
  
Itachi hums thoughtfully, "I would say…. the Valley of the End."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Moonlight shines through the window and the leaves puppeteer dances with the shadows on the wall. His brother had let him sleep next to the wall because if there were any shadows that would grab him during the night, he would protect him from them. (It's what he's trained to do after all — what he'll do till the end of his time.)  
  
"The two statues — friends who fought each other to the death for the sake of Konoha. It's… symbolic— the name." Itachi spoke with tiredness etched into his voice.  
  
Sasuke thinks; the Valley of the End sends tugs in his chest and he understands. His brother loves history and titles; connecting them together to make a symbol. Itachi doesn't like war, he lives to end it but his favorite place is one where one was fought and ended in death. Sasuke doesn't know what to make of it but his brother's talking eases his eyes into the sleepy grips of his brain.  
  
"Goodnight, Itachi."  
  
Sasuke looks at his brother but he is already asleep.  
  
-

##### iii.

  
Sasuke wakes up in a cold sweat.  
  
This isn't the first time nor the second. If Sasuke can count all the times he woke up like this, he couldn't. He doesn't have enough fingers — no ones does. He feels paralyzed against the bed, he can't move. He stays up till the nights over and the day begins.

Sometimes, it isn't the nightmares that keep him up. Instead, it's the deadly quietness that makes his ears ring. Sasuke learned a long time ago that it's not only the living that has a presence, not the only thing that can make his hair stand. There's no one alive in the Uchiha district, so the silence doesn't have the try hard to get his attention.

No one offers to protect him from the dark anymore; he protects himself. He learns to take his fear and manhandle it into his own sword.  
  
(It doesn't change what it is, though. Fear will never leave him — apart of him as much as his eyes are.)  
  
-

##### -iii.

  
"Why do you always have to talk Father into spending time with me?" Sasuke asks because he's five turning six and his brother is eleven. It seems like a lifetime age different.  
  
Itachi stops swinging his legs where Sasuke is perched on, using him as his own personal swing. They're sitting on the porch and the midday sun leaves warmth on their faces. Their mother forced them into sweaters only a few hours beforehand.  
  
"I don't." Itachi lies, rocking his legs gently again. Sasuke knows he's lying because he's too tense, his eyebrows too pinched together. For all his time training, he has yet to master lying seamlessly.

  
Sasuke pouts, "Sure." Itachi lies all the time anyways, Sasuke isn't surprised. Itachi simply feels _too much_ to lie right.  
  
Itachi is quiet for a few moments, listening to how the leaves sing tunes of their own. "He does love you, you know that? He's just busy…."  
  
_Busy_ , Sasuke thinks. He knows that Father doesn't have time for Itachi either but never too _busy_ for him. Itachi is eleven and it seems like a lifetime difference at seven years old but despite that, Itachi is just as naive to their father's choice of comfort and decisions. Their father uses distance to toughen them — something they learn at birth, something they understand within time, and their father will always stay distant.  
  
(Itachi grew up in war — he's seen death, mountains of bodies, and combat with its aftershocks. Uchiha's are destined protectors. But comfort… It's something the Uchiha's aren't known for. They are known for their eyes and loyalty but neither is defined by sympathy. They are known for loving too much that it spoils into hatred and that if there's any noble way to die, it's on the battlefield protecting your clan.  
  
Uchihas' die nobly in battle with their sword in their hands. They don't die for sympathy.)  
  
Itachi ruffles his already messy hair and Sasuke doesn't bring the topic of their father up again.

  
-

#####    
iv.

  
Sasuke is twelve-turning-thirteen when he joins a genin team.  
  
Their sensei is weird, his teammates are irritating, and Sasuke soon finds them almost comforting.  
  
(It scares him; fear can be made into a weapon but if the blade's too dull, it might as well just have been left the way it was. Don't fix it if it isn't broken — don't fix what can't be.)  
  
Naruto holds up the cat they've been hunting down with trumpet. And when they return the cat, Sasuke thinks of his own. The kitten never left, not that Sasuke had ever tried to make her leave. He feeds her fish from the store right outside the district and she walks around his house and sleeps on the corner of his bed. It's a comforting weight.

The lady chokes her cat with 'love' and leaves the building. Watching them walk out, Sasuke remembers that the kitten is no longer one, her body long and fluffy. She isn't like the ninja cats he grew up with. She may not be able to fight anyone's physical hands off him but cats are protectors of their family. A cat's nine lives are all spent protecting their own — a familiar reminder that makes his heart ache too much that it feels it's breaking at times.  
  
Sasuke tries to not dwell on his thoughts for too long. Thankfully, they're interrupted by Naruto's yell for higher ranks.  
  
_Idiot_ , Sasuke thinks and tells despite agreeing.  
  
It's fun, seeing Naruto's anger light up like a firework.

  
  
They get a C-rank mission. Somehow.  
  
Except it isn't a C-rank mission because the old man lied, because he couldn't afford the A-rank mission debt.

They're barely Genin. Too new, too smooth for an A-rank mission. So, Kakashi makes them train their chakra, a task that seems easy in explanation.

(It isn't.)

Naruto sits upon one of the tree's thick limbs, breathing heavily. It's too late to see below them but the moonlight is just bright enough to see each other clearly.

There are aches humming throughout his body, starting at his heels and the soles of his feet. Sasuke feels as though he has run through a curtain of fire — his skin aflame and alive. He's only one tree away from Naruto, who must be facing the same aches as him.

Chakra control isn't something they're born with, not like Sakura, who wields her talent like a needle — picking in and out of her skin. You feel it on her skin, the ground she walks on, the air she surrounds.

(Sasuke will learn how that feels only days later and knows then that Sakura's talent isn't a needle. It's something gentler, something mighty.)

She has pride swelled in her chest, Sasuke can tell even if he doesn't pay attention to her as much as someone, say Naruto, would. Pride is a dangerous game — Uchiha or not.

(He numbly remembers how he used to speak his brother's name in pride, how he used to be so happy that he was oldest Uchiha's little brother, the brother of the district's pride. Like Father, who was so proud that he couldn't tear his eyes away to look his youngest.

Sometimes, it makes Sasuke sick to his stomach remembering. Sometimes, he doesn't feel anything. He doesn't know what's worst — that he still thinks of him as his older brother or that he's unable to call him by his real name.

In reality, they're both the same. They both carry a disease and Sasuke can't heal from it. It lingers in his blood and he's sure that it's genetic. The Uchiha's curse is genetic — as well a brother's grief shall remain too.)

Naruto catches his breath, "Wanna race back down?" He grins a catlike smile and perched on the tree like a cat readying for an attack.

Sasuke finds himself smirking back, "Try and keep up. Scaredy cat."

They race down.

  
-

#####    
-iv.

One night, Fugaku Uchiha sits in the sitting room with his son.

Sasuke doesn't know where his mother is, and Itachi is most likely heading home from his mission out of Konoha. He doesn't understand why his father is sitting across from him.

As Sasuke continues reading from his book, he worries on his lip of thoughts of why his father wants to be near him. He passed the last semester with higher than passing grades, even if his father did brush it off without much comment. But he should've guessed that; it was an expectation to be better.

Did he do something wrong? Was it not good enough? He knows he isn't Itachi, no matter how much his Aunt would like to say he is. No, Itachi sets the expectations and Sasuke just has to follow them. But Sasuke can't even do that most times.

Sasuke forces himself to relax. He wishes Itachi was here; he knows his father's expression like the back of his hand.

His father hasn't tried to talk to him or do anything to grab his attention. He simply drinks his tea and reads from his own book. Somehow, that's even more unsettling.

But Sasuke gets the hint. He doesn't say anything either, and slowly gets used to his father's ghost-like presence. He doesn't spend time with his father, he can count on one hand the number of times they were alone together like this. Every time he imagined spending time with him, he came up with nothing in the end because nothing ever seemed _Fugaku Uchiha_ enough.

As they read in their own bubble of privacy, his father seems comfortable enough with it being just this and Sasuke thinks: _Oh, that's it._

-

##### v.

  
On the first meeting of their Genin team, Sasuke had boldly claimed his goal of restoring his Clan's honor. There's was nothing more to that because that's all he's ever been for the past six years.

But here's the thing: He never told anyone his plan, that it was his brother that he needed to kill. No one needed to ask, they all knew. Despite that, it always felt like a secret he'll take to the grave, one buried right next to his brother. His brother is stained red, his hands are dipped with crimson sourced from oh-so-many bodies and Sasuke learns that it smears everywhere, that it's hard to get rid of completely. Impossible, that is.  
  
But now, there are needles sticking out everywhere on his body; his throat is stained ruby and it coughs up. Sasuke woke up at seven years old and only saw red — at age thirteen, the same age his brother revealed the monster he was, he's pouring red inside out.  
  
(His shoulder— He bleeds from it, he bleeds from everywhere. The needles poke holes into his paper-thin skin and all the ink pours out.)  
  
He never told anyone about his brother, after the massacre. He'll yell on the mountain tops that he'll be the one to kill his Clan's murder but he'll never utter his name. They all know to never ask and Sasuke could never tell.  
  
He tells Naruto though, as the world fades and breaks into pieces — its own fragile ice mirror.

-

#####    
-v.

He is seven years old and his father tries to teach him an Uchiha's family passed down fire jutsu.  
  
It leaves his mouth and lips stinging and Sasuke thinks if he closes his eyes, he can still see how everything in front of him lit up in orange, yellow, and red. He feels his nerves are on edge and frazzled because if you stand too close to a fire, you burn — if you create it, you are fire yourself.  
  
His fire dies early, does not carry the heat he wanted. Sasuke can feel the way his throat burns with unshed sadness as he sees his father's disappointed expression. He sees how his father looks walking away from him once again.  
  
His father says he should have never been expecting Itachi in Sasuke. He is still _too young,_ not _enough_. There's a miscellaneous bundle of emotion that explode in his chest, in his being — from his heart, spreads to his feet, and to his fingertips.  
  
(The knowledge that he is compared to his brother isn't recent news, not close to new. It's something he realized at five years old; even if Sasuke knows of his father comfort, he and Itachi are no closer to understanding him, to closing the distance between them all.  
  
But… to have it be confirmed— it hurts. The disappointment eats at him, at his brain. Disappointment is a pack of starving wolves; they leave nothing behind and its lost tingles in his bones.)  
  
He stares down the footsteps his father left and turns to the lake. If all he wishes for is his father's approval, he'll need to start working harder for it.  
  
He starts practicing.  
  
(If you can't get first place— strive for the best position you can get. Strive until you beat first place.)

(Strive until first place doesn't matter anymore, strive until you lose yourself in the process.)  
  
-

#####    
vi.

Sasuke meets Rock Lee and has his entire world flipped upside down.  
  
The Sharingan can only do so much; take so much. He was top of the class, the Sasuke Uchiha — the last Uchiha (he isn't) and everyone treats him like he has "fragile— handle gently" tape wrapped all around him till he's nothing but it (he isn't). Rock Lee shook Sasuke to his core and now he can barely stand on his two feet.

Their fight doesn't leave him for a while afterward, and the Sharingan's ability to remember every detail doesn't help him cope either.  
  
Sasuke doesn't remember much of the written test other than his quiet acceptance that he may not advance due to his anxious teammate. And then that teammate proving him wrong once again.  
  
(They don't talk about the Land of Waves — an unspoken rule. They don't talk about how you can still see where the needle poked Sasuke if you look close enough, remember enough. The short clipped words Sasuke had told Naruto when he was at the hands of death or the fear that paralyzed Sakura. They don't speak of Haku or Zabuza's bittersweet death laid next to their cold body that cared too much for one person. Someone precious to them.)  
  
(They don't speak about it but they understand each other better. Because Sakura has more potential than they realize or know what to do with, Naruto is willing to fight hell and back for them, and Sasuke—  
  
They don't speak about it.)  
  
Anko speaks of the forest as if it's death itself and Sasuke thinks it's a cheap way of scaring them.  
  
He doesn't expect her to be right but she had understated it — it was worse than death itself.  
  
(Because at death— you have peace.)  
  
-

##### -vi.

  
"Are you able to help me train with a new jutsu?" Sasuke asks, young and excited because he hasn't been taught the fire jutsu at this time and Itachi's Sharingan is still the same as it has always been  
  
Itachi smiles warmly and walks up to him. Sasuke is vibrating with excitement because Itachi was the pride of the district, the ideal version of who to be next in line of Hokage. If he has to learn the best to beat the best, he has to be taught by the one who hoards the mantle.  
  
Itachi walks up and bumps him on the forehead with two fingers, warmth still in his eyes. "Maybe later, Sasuke. I just got back from training myself."  
  
Pouting, Sasuke points out, "You always say that — you promised."  
  
Itachi shrugs and walks to the main room where no doubt their father is waiting for them. "Later will come someday, baby brother."  
  
(It never does. Or, at least in the way he wanted.)  
  
Itachi leaves into the living room. "Ask father, maybe he would train you." He calls out as the door closes, a not so subtle jab for him to spend time with their father because family means everything to Itachi.  
  
(It always has. It's the Uchiha Clan's way.)  
  
Itachi used to be so close when they were younger but as he got higher and higher up in the ranks, he doesn't have as much time with Sasuke as he used to — too _busy_ for him. But he never felt as distant as their father did. Sasuke does ask their father but is turned away as he expected. (He expected that much because his father doesn't start paying attention to him until Itachi's behavior declines and he's last in line to turn to.)  
  
The next day, Itachi comes home like he's aged tenfold, the warmth flickers in his eyes after he declines another request to train with Sasuke. Another day passes, Shisui is pronounced dead and Itachi is the first suspect; that day, Sasuke sees how his brother's eyes change (Uchiha curse, the curse of grief and—) and suddenly, Itachi is distant and his father is closer than he has ever been — a mirror, a reverse, a contradiction.  
  
(It's the closest his father will ever be.)

-

#####    
vii.

  
Sasuke passes out, terrified and screaming in pain from the bite of a new curse mark.  
  
(Too many curses are building up on him now. They stack and stack until he is crushed from the pressure of all them but then— they keep piling.)  
  
When he wakes, there's a power that hums through him. Overwhelming and everywhere — it seeps from his skin, from his senses, from his everything. It's addicting, blood rushing, something he needs more of. It hurts, almost, of how much energy is flowing in him.  
  
It doesn't hurt, though, when he sees himself walking up to the sound Gein, the one that hurt Sakura. It doesn't hurt when he pulls on his arms until he's begging for him to stop. It doesn't hurt to hear his cries. It doesn't hurt until Sakura's arms wrap around his waist, crying for him to stop and suddenly everything is _too_ _alive_.  
  
He can feel the way his neck still burns. He sees the way black imprints his skin like tattoos, vaguely reminding him of snakes (and the woman that wasn't a woman, wasn't — couldn't have been human at all). He also feels how everything grinds against his presence — how they grind against him as if he's abnormal, he feels so _unnatural_.  
  
He drops.  
  
(Sasuke's world works in this way— she is everything his sees, smell, taste, touch. She is his mother, father, God, and child. She is him; he isn't her.

He isn't her because she is beauty, grace, and she is the love poets write books about. There are people like her, is that version of her. The ones with smiles that shine brighter than the sun, the ones who care too much that it destroys them, and the ones who spend their whole lives protecting the ones they love. She is also the ugly, the wicked, and the hideous. She is the abnormal. And there are people like her too; people who have too many curses that it crushes them, they are the ones who are bad sons, the ones that are unnatural.

She is the creator of everything. She is everything he loves, everything he hates, and she is the one who chooses Sasuke's pain. But she's also the only thing keeping him alive.  
  
Sasuke is only one version of Mother Earth, never her whole. He isn't her, but she will always be him. He is one of her faces that only receives a fraction of her warmth. But, it's enough for Sasuke, who doesn't deserve it in the first place. He would grow crooked for her sunlight because it feels too much like someone familiar. Someone gone.)

-

##### -vii.

His mother eats across from him. Her hair seeps down her shoulders and Sasuke forgets in time what it was like to brush it, the way it moves with the wind, how it shines reddish in the sun. Sasuke once thought of her like the sun, ever burning and near to impossible to burn out.  
  
"Where's Itachi?" Sasuke asks because his brother is never there anymore. He disappears like a ghost at times and Sasuke wonders if he had envy hands, what would Itachi steal?  
  
His mother doesn't answer, her silence sad and the sun dies out behind her.

(The truth is this: Mikoto Uchiha will swallow the sun for her sons. She would suffer the promise of a burn if it keeps them warm. Her heart is too big, there's _too_ _much_ in her. She is impossible to burn out — even after death, her warmth is sure to never leave.

After all, she dies proud of her sons. What other kinds of warmth compares?)  
  
-

##### viii.

When he wakes, he makes Sakura promise to not tell Naruto about his curse mark. He doesn't need his worry on top of hers. The worry feels too familiar that chokes him at times.

He doesn't remember most of the remaining time on the test. There was fishing (and Naruto's stupidity), the scrolls (and Naruto's idiocy), and the final fight towards the end (and Naruto's unbending will to fight for them).

Then, they're forced to fight again, because too many of them qualified, because Mother Earth is cruel and she handpicks him to star for every one of her shows. Sakura tells him to leave. Sasuke tells himself he can't.

(Uchihas aren't allowed to give up.)  
  
Sasuke aches and aches. He's in pain, he's always in pain.

(He almost broke that rule once. He can't dishonor his family any more than he already has.)

  
He fights a boy from the leaf, a fight he can barely remember afterward as Kakashi rushes him somewhere else. Somewhere dark because the curse is spreading on his skin again like a disease. He kneels down on a ritual mark.  
  
Kakashi performs a seal to control the curse (Curse of Heaven, a bite that gives you power, a bite that takes) and Sasuke feels the promise of a star's burn. A promise that rushes in his veins, a promise that enters his curse mark and out his mouth. When Sasuke was seven years old, he screamed and begged for his life — thirteen years old and he's still screaming, His throat is hoarse and it bleeds out his fear; what else is a scream used for?  
  
He's always in pain. A pain that never leaves, one that doesn't have a source.  
  
(When Sasuke was seven years old, he feared for his life. That fear never leaves you, it grows, it spreads. It takes over until it's all you are, all you ever were, all you'll ever be.)  
  
-

##### -viii.

  
He executes a flawless fire jutsu; one that leaves his lips stinging and the air hot.  
  
He turns to his father, pride swelling in his chest just like the burn of chakra had. He trained non-stop for weeks, suffering burns and his mother's concern. He felt that pride break and die when his father turns and walks away. Disappointment is a monster that eats everything it can take. But then— his father does something Sasuke thought he would never do.  
  
"That's my boy." His father says and Sasuke's heart lifts.  
  
(His mother had said once that when they're alone, Sasuke was the only thing his father could talk about.)  
  
-

##### ix.

  
He trains with Kakashi, who teaches him that while he has the iconic Uchiha fire signature, he also has lightning that crackles in the palm of his hand. That he can control both flow and form and that he can mold himself into whatever form is he strong enough to handle.  
  
He doesn't talk to his teammates. He doesn't look for them and doesn't give them a chance to look for him because Orochimaru gave a harsh reminder of what he should be doing, what he should be striving for.  
  
(There is no first place anymore; it died years ago and now all he has to do is avenge his clan. He must do it. He's the only one now.

It's been six years since the massacre already and his brother is still breathing, still alive. Every year that passes, he feels the weight of guilt pile and pile and at some point he realizes— he shouldn't have been the one to survive.  
  
[No matter what his brother had said to him, he shouldn't have been the one to live. He wasn't, isn't, strong enough for it. He'll probably never be.]  
  
He's always been a bad son anyways; he hopes when he dies, his clan could forgive him. But, what gives him the right to hope? Nothing does.)  
  
The actual fight, the one he trained for, is against Gaara, who moves sand like an extra limb. The fight he worked so hard for, he doesn't get to finish.  
  
Naruto finishes it for him — against a Jinchūriki out of anything, a boy who has a sand demon sealed in him — and wins.  
  
He does more than win because Sasuke passes out mid-battle out of pain from the curse mark and forces Naruto to take over. He finds Naruto dragging himself to a defeated Gaara by sheer will alone, to Gaara who had been crying out for his mother in pain during his own fight with Sasuke.  
  
Gaara, who had a sand demon sealed in him at birth that killed his mother. Gaara, whose shell is made of sand and made to look like a boy who experienced so much loss that he can only love himself now. Gaara, who cries when hit because the demon and the ghost of his mother had always protected him but— the sand can only do so much.

Gaara's fellow sand Gein grab him and leave quickly because their fight is over. Their business is done and over with. The invasion both a somewhat success and failure — neither a win or loss.  
  
Naruto lays exhausted of both energy and chakra, blood spattered on his forehead. Sasuke takes a moment and just stares at him. He had defeated a Jinchūriki, a demon, and had an insane amount of chakra, an inhumane amount.  
  
Sasuke suddenly feels demoted from his title as the strongest of the team; Naruto has changed so much since they formed Team Kakashi, both socially and in strength and…. How much has Sasuke changed? How much stronger did Sasuke get during his time in Konoha?  
  
He hasn't — he's still too weak.  
  
(His brother had said once that he was the one. He said that he would only spare him because he's not worth killing but he's also the only one who could stand a chance against him in battle. Sasuke hopes his ancestors could forgive him when he dies because—  
  
After Itachi dies, Sasuke plans to follow shortly after.  
  
Because he never planned anything afterward. He has no other purpose. After his brother and revenge for his clan, he doesn't have any other purpose to live. Living without a purpose— it's one of the worst ways someone could live, to live unnecessarily.)  
  
  
  
Once the is seed is implanted, once a storm passed and water rains down, a plant grows; even from underneath the concrete.  
  
Sasuke doesn't plan it, to be exact. The inhumane voice and body lurks in his memory and talks about power for him. He's thought about it, something that haunts him along with the spirits of the district. They've been agitated recently, clawing their nails in his arms, in his legs; their hands spray across his entire body and tug him back into the murk. Not even the cat can protect him from the ghost of grief and shame.  
  
Sasuke can never let himself forget about that night, never stops reminding himself of what he lost and what was taken from him. So much so that it feels like a limb has been cut off, something missing from him and it hurts so much. It never stops hurting, Not even when the world around him feels so— separate.  
  
The plant grows, a seed, a sapling. And it haunts him.  
  
-

#####    
x.

Itachi Uchiha is alive.  
  
Itachi Uchiha, infamous missing-nin who assassinated his entire clan with the exception of one in a single night at thirteen years old, is alive. Itachi Uchiha, who tortured the only survivor of the massacre with a Genjutsu of terrors, is alive. Itachi Uchiha, who joined the Akatsuki soon after leaving Konoha with the blood of his family on his hands, is alive. Itachi Uchiha, the older brother of Sasuke Uchiha, the last of the Uchiha Clan, is alive.  
  
Itachi Uchiha is alive and _looking_ _for_ _Naruto_.  
  
(It's the first time in six years that he's allowed himself to identify his name, to refer to him as it.)  
  
Sasuke's heart is beating in his throat as he runs to the last known place Naruto and Jiraiya left to. He doesn't know why his brother is after Naruto; he has a weak idea, of one of how Naruto went up against a sand demon and came out victorious. It's an idea but it's also the Akatsuki and has no idea what they could possibly want. Has no idea of their goals.  
  
It feels surreal — Sasuke feels the familiar wash of reality feeling distant. His brother is looking for his friend, his brother whom he hasn't seen since he was seven except for all the nightmares he couldn't count to fit on both hands.  
  
He talks to every shop, store, ramen diner, hotel, bathhouse worker to see if they've seen Naruto or Jiraiya. They don't, they haven't, they don't know what he's talking about and Sasuke leaves to another place to another to another.  
  
When he finds them— it's too late.  
  
-

##### -ix.

  
Itachi at thirteen years old had lines on his face as if he aged years before he was even alive. He had kindness in his eyes, love with his voice, and he was peaceful.  
  
Sasuke is seven years old when he walks through a lonely home, seven years old when he hears arguing in the living room, seven years old and opens the living room's door. He is met with silence and then told to go back to sleep, he was hearing something he shouldn't have heard. He's too young to understand.  
  
The room's floor is smooth and so clean it shines (he remembers this because when he was seven years old, he saw it covered in crimson and could never see it for what it used to be). Itachi walks him back to his room after finding him still waiting a few feet away from the door, out of sight.  
  
"Sleep, baby brother." He pokes his forehead. "I'll be here."  
  
-

##### xi.

 _He_ _looks_ _the_ _same_ , Sasuke thinks.  
  
They're standing in the hallway of a hotel. There's another Akatsuki member standing next to a bewildered Naruto. He doesn't even know he's being hunted by them, does he? Sasuke can't seem to catch his breath and his legs ache numbly.  
  
Itachi looks the same except he's older, the lines deeper. He's only eighteen years old and yet he looks like he's lived years and years. He's taller, towering over both him and Naruto. He stands in a perfect posture because the Uchiha's are prideful people, they shall stand as if. Itachi stands and Sasuke thinks of how he can never remember the past without thinking of how he ruined it, thinking of everything he lost because of _him_. There's nothing in Itachi's eyes, except for the fully mature Sharingan that haunts in Sasuke's own eyes, who only has his second tomoe unlocked. Sasuke grits his teeth and makes the first move.  
  
And then everything goes to hell.  
  
(Because when Sasuke was seven, he had begged for his life and the price was torture. Of a Genjutsu of horrors that showed a movie stained crimson and the stench of blood will never leave him — the strong smell of bleach couldn't even mask it.)

(His brother must have a disgusting sense of humor. He thinks Sasuke is too young to hear a family argue but thinks dead bodies dropping is just right for him. Maybe he's right. After all, Itachi grew in war. It would makes perfect sense for him.)  
  
-

##### -x.

Still reeling from the words his father had said that sent pride thrumming in his chest, Sasuke continues training. And he keeps training, even when his chakra is starved and there are burns on his face because fire has always been the Uchiha's signature style of jutsu. His mother talks about grey hairs when she sees him nowadays, right before rummaging through the supply cabinet.  
  
His father had said to bring honor to the crest he wears, to the crest he is branded with at birth. The other Clans may refer to it was the traitor crest but Sasuke will always think of it as _him_. Because his father also said to make his own path, to stray away from Itachi's shadow; he said to never follow his brother path, to follow his brother.  
  
(He's always been a bad son; the Clan might have a chance at forgiving him but his father might never.)  
  
When he walks home one night after training later than he realized, he feels someone's eyes on him. It's unsettling, it leaves a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Then, he realizes that it's too dark.  
  
-

##### xii.

Sasuke wakes up a week later.  
  
For a minute, he's afraid that's he's seven again and just lost everything. Afraid that he's seven again and he's _losing_ everything but he's thirteen and doesn't have much else _to_ lose.  
  
(He does have something to lose though — someone, no, multiple people, _precious_ people — and it makes him nauseous and shaky just thinking about it.)  
  
The world feels distant again. (He is one of Mother Earth's many faces — the ugly, the abnormal, the bad sons.) There's a blanket at his waist but Sasuke still feels cold. But he doesn't complain, as cold nights aren't new to him. They latch on him because ghosts come in many different types, even in just wind. They are the many different curses that pile.  
  
Sasuke stares at his hands. (He is the hideous, the cursed ones, and the desensitized.) He feels numb because when he creates fire, he is it as it is him and fire burns everything that is him; it kills his nerves and now he's numb.  
  
He doesn't register Sakura's hug until she lets go. He doesn't feel her or her affection.  
  
( _Itachi_ , his mind supplies, he had hurt him again.)

Six years ago, there was an unfamiliar burn in him. One he couldn't scratch out, the unnatural feeling of it being there made him too sick to eat. Funny how the times changed — feeling that burn has turned into his new normal. Although, he's never been able to scratch that feeling out, no matter how hard he tries.

He doesn't feel it now. His hands shake involuntarily.  
  
(Itachi didn't need to show him the memories of that night with the Mangekyō Sharingan, he remembers on his own just well enough.)  
  
He sits and lets the distance between him and reality take over.  
  
-  
  
xiii.

For almost a week, he can't— he doesn't feel anything.  
  
Then he feels something burning in his chest.  
  
( _Concentrate all your chakra in your chest,_ his father had instructed on the wooden deck of the lake, _and blow it out through your mouth_.)  
  
He feels a burn in his chest, it consumes him because it's created by him, he is it. The fire builds and builds until it's all he is. Sasuke Uchiha is known for his silence, his anger, and for his Clan's massacre — that's all he is to them, to himself.  
  
The fire is him as much he is the fire (as much as he is Mother Earth). Sasuke holds it and calls it anger because a brother's grief is a curse that shall remain in his blood.  
  
He holds the fire in him and he calls it anger.  
  
( _And_ _blow_ _it_ _through_ _your_ _mouth_. His father had said and he had watched the lake's surface burn yellow, orange, and red.)

(The burn is almost a relief.)  
  
-

##### -xi.

Red stains — it's basic knowledge. It paints too dark and it bleeds through paper and clothing. It's simple facts.

He finds corpses, that is also a simple fact. Morbid, that is.  
  
There's knives, weapons, blood everywhere. He feels the bile rise in his throat, the sickness in his stomach but he swallows it down. He does because whoever killed them could be still around, could be killing someone else, could be _watching_ _him._  
  
As he runs, he finds his Aunt and Uncle, curled up together. They have a pool of blood that surrounds them and Sasuke feels like it's staining him now. It makes his skin feel dirty and his eyes unclear. His heart won't stop racing and his legs feel like they're about to give out at any moment. His heart pounds so hard it hurts his chest, his ribs. It hurts his head. Everything _aches_.  
  
He needs to get home, he _needs_ to tell his father. Tell _someone._  
  
He keeps moving.  
  
-

#####    
xiii.

  
He challenges Naruto because his brother saw more potential in him than he did with his own brother.  
  
He challenges him because he went up against a Jinchūriki at his truest form and came out victorious. He challenges him because he grew so much in so little time that he makes Sasuke feel inferior at times. He challenges him because he was the only one he told the story of a boy, a bad son who lived only to end his brother's life with his own hand. He challenges him because somewhere along the way, Sasuke started trusting him.  
  
He challenges him because Naruto is someone precious to Sasuke and it scares him.  
  
(There are a million reasons to why Sasuke does what he does; there's, also, a million reasons to why Sasuke does what he does that he's not even aware of.)  
  
They fight and Sasuke sees first hand to just how powerful Naruto can be.  
  
They fight until Sakura is crying for them to stop. They fight until Kakashi shows up and is forced to stop them. They fight until they both blow up a water tank of their own and Sasuke sees the difference between them.  
  
Sasuke is _weak_.  
  
The realization strangles him, it grabs him by the choke and forces him to see it.  
  
_He's_ _weak_.  
  
(His brother, still wearing his ANBU uniform and surrounded by the dark, black, and dim, had told him at seven years old that he's not worth killing.)  
  
If Sasuke can't defeat Naruto, if he can't look at his brother with the same eyes he has, then he won't be able to fulfill his own purpose. The ghost of grief sunk their claws deep into Sasuke and they watch how the blood bleeds out from under their nails.  
  
There's an option; one that is called the Curse of Heaven because if you ever want to feel it's true power, you'll have to go through hell and back.  
  
(Even from underneath the cement, a sapling grows.)

-

#####    
-xii.

  
When Sasuke gets to his house, he feels so disconnected from reality that he takes off his shoes and drops his bags because his mother doesn't like filth on her clean, wooden floors.  
  
He stands outside the main room's door; when he's about to open, he hears the night move from inside. He hears the unmistakable sound of someone alive in there.  
  
He's shaking so bad that his legs almost give out underneath him. The only support he has is the handle of the door. He's _scared_. He's terrified because he's seen nothing but crimson stained remains laid across the ground since he got back home and there's someone alive in his home. Someone he doesn't know because he knows the sound of the movement of his father, the sound of the movement of his mother.  
  
He pushes.  
  
-

##### xiv.

  
Kakashi, their aloof and weird sensei, tells him he isn't the only one who's lost something, someone, in their lives. Because Kakashi knows the pain of missing the way someone would smile, the way someone would talk; even to the little things like the sound of them breathing, the way they smell that leaves you feeling empty after so long.  
  
Kakashi leaves, Sasuke stays.  
  
Kakashi leaves, and a group of strangers appears.  
  
(When a sapling grows from underneath the pavement, it grows through the crack and spaces of the rock. It grows and grows until the rock splits and now the sapling turns into a tree of its own. It beats all odds; not even the strongest of concrete can win against a seed placed too perfectly underneath.)  
  
Sasuke is bruised and bleeding when he grows from the cracked concrete of Konoha.  
  
(He is still too weak; after six years of extensive training, he's still too weak. He isn't learning from Konoha, he's not getting stronger here. She has nothing else to offer, not even her warmth is enough for his cold ridden bones. Orochimaru gives promise and a purpose after he kills his brother.)  
  
(He has no other choice.)  
  
-

##### -xiii.

Uchiha's die with their swords in their hands — only then, they achieve true peace in the afterlife. Because it meant you protect your kin, even if it meant spilling your own.  
  
His father truly loved his mother. Sasuke saw the way his father's face would go soft when looking at her. He has never known his father because he teaches strength through neglect, but he knows love from his mother. He knows that when she holds his face at times and he would look at her as if she hung the stars. He's sure that even in death, they would still love each other.  
  
Even in death, his father holds his mother. Sasuke read thousands of stories of lovers dying together — no sadder end to a love story if they are separate in their final moments.  
  
Their blood mixes together but it's always crimson in the end.  
  
(His father dies with his sword in hand. It's handle presses an outline in his white-knuckled hand while the other holds his wife's hand, softly because even in their last moments, his father is still soft for her.)  
  
Itachi steps out from the shade.  
  
-

#####    
xv.

  
He stands in his childhood home, the moonlight is his only source of light.  
  
His cat isn't there, and he realizes he had never given her a proper name. (She was never really _his_ to begin with.) Perhaps she senses his resolve because while cats are loyal to their kittens, they know when they're grown up enough to leave.  
  
(Sometimes, loyalty and love aren't enough to stay.)  
  
It's okay because the spirits of grief don't bother him tonight. They keep their hands to themselves for the first time in six years because they understand that this is his first step forward. The ghosts of grief don't know when to let go but they know that sometimes things are too far away to reach, sometimes those things are at arms lengths. Distance is a tricky thing after all — after and before death.  
  
But a brother's grief— it always stays. It remains.  
  
He packs his bags; he doesn't need much. Fantasies are a bad thing when you're trying to move on.  
  
(He pushes the photo of Team Seven down. Memories are a bad thing, memories are haunting, memories are ghosts and curses of their own. Memories are fantasies of 'what if'.)  
  
He leaves from his bedroom window; he has never touched his parent's or his brother's room after the massacre because he trembles so bad that those times his legs _do_ give out under him. And when he lays on the ground, he remembers how blood feels against his body, against his face.  
  
(Because at age seven, he fell in a pool of his parent's blood and terrified for his life, terrified _of_ his life.

  
The smell of bleach lingers — from the room and his hands because no matter how many times he scrubs the floor of which his parents laid across, he could never get the stain out. Even if the red isn't visible.)  
  
He walks down the only path out of Konoha.  
  
(Sakura is there to try and stop him from leaving — she even confesses her love. Sasuke feels the weight of guilt harden when she falls in his arms, unconscious but alive. He wishes that she didn't chase him like this, because he's hopeless to tie down and she has too much ahead of her just to waste it on him. He doesn't listen to her pleas because Sasuke promised himself six years ago that he would avenge his clan, to never stray away from his goal.)  
  
(It's his only purpose; he has no other choice.)  
  
-

##### -xiv.

  
"Itachi," Sasuke gasps his name because he feels like he's drowning underwater. He can't breathe and his heart won't calm down. He can barely form a sentence, his words of _mother_ and _father_ and _someone did this, someone did this_ come out in a jumble.  
  
It doesn't matter. Because before he can get his words to form in a straight line, a kunai is thrown and it grazes Sasuke's shoulder. His skin is thin like paper — the ink pours out seamlessly.  
  
Sasuke looks up at his brother and his heart pounds so hard he can hear in his ears. It pounds in his throat that Sasuke is afraid that if he opens it, it'll fall right out.  
  
He does anyways because death sounds better the reality he's living in now. (It had always seemed more appealing, even after it was all over.) "Itachi…. _Why_?!" He sounds hysterical, even to his own ears.  
  
Itachi doesn't speak, not immediately. He has a blank face and blanker eyes; he doesn't even seem to be alive — whether he breathes or not. Then he says, "Foolish baby brother."  
  
(He stood with perfect posture because Uchiha's are prideful people, they should—

  
There's only two Uchiha's left, only two left in the traitor clan. There is no pride to carry anymore.)  
  
Itachi looks at him in the eyes and Sasuke sees just how much his Sharingan changed. Then he learns just how powerful Mangekyō Sharingan is.  
  
(The curse of the Uchiha. The Mangekyō Sharingan: the experience of great trauma and grief grants you a powerful Genjutsu that can show anyone anything, stop and slow time down till one second feels like a day, a day feels like infinity. That is the Curse of Hatred; why Uchiha's are known for their eyes, known for their pride.)  
  
-

#####    
xvi.

  
There's only darkness, only power. Then there is light.  
  
Sasuke feels hysterical, so much so that he decides if Naruto is going to chase him everywhere he goes, he'll see how far he's willing to go. He always wondered from the age of six just how far he would walk for his brother, he'll haunt Naruto with that same question. He runs through the dense forest and never checks if Naruto is still following because if he asked Naruto to jump, he would ask with how high — vice versa.  
  
(When Sasuke was five years old and afraid of the unknown in the nighttime, he asked his brother what his favorite place was. His brother, the peacemaker, the pacifist, answered with—)  
  
The Valley of the End is breathtaking.  
  
-

##### -xv.

Sasuke Uchiha is seven years old when he sees everyone he knows, everyone he loves, dissolve before his eyes.  
  
They die by the hands of his elder brother, the pride of the district, the ideal next in line Hokage, the genius, the peacemaker, the pacifist. They all die with the same expression of terror, of death, and of grief that every ghost of his home district wears. Something that haunts Sasuke for the rest of his life. Sasuke spends three days in that hell (and he will again six years later because people never learn the first time just how powerful some people can be).  
  
They all die with the same unforgettable expression and when their bodies fall, they morph and scatter into ravens.  
  
(Because here's what Sasuke doesn't know, something he won't learn until he's older and his brother is long gone: Itachi Uchiha was thirteen years old when he sees his best friend, his brother, take his last remaining eye and hold it out. He watched the blood from his eyes run down his face like tears as a raven takes the eye from his hand. Itachi was thirteen when he watches helplessly as Shisui backs to the edge of the cliff and throws himself off into the river below. The Mangekyō Sharingan evolves from misery and distress — it strikes his eyes because a brother's grief is genetic, it's forever. It's a curse.)  
  
Sasuke Uchiha is seven years old when he lays in the blood of his parents. He's shivering with every part of his body and when he looks up, he meets the lifeless eyes of his mother.  
  
(She's impossible to burn out; you'll feel her warmth even after her death. After all, she had swallowed the closest star in their sky for her sons.)  
  
He realizes then— he can't die like this, he doesn't _want_ to die.  
  
So, he runs.

  
-

#####    
xvii.

  
Naruto speaks to him as if he knows him.  
  
(He does; he's the only one who knows about his plans, about his brother. Something he told when he was bleeding out and accepting that if he had to die that way, he wants someone else to carry the burden of an orphan's vengeance.)  
  
Naruto may know what it's like to come home to an empty house. He may know how suffocating it is, how it presses down on everything — from your outside in. He may know what it's like to look at parents with their child and feel like your heart is tearing up all over again.

Sasuke knows he does because he had watched Naruto since he was left alone. His loneliness was what drew him to Naruto because if anyone could understand the pain of an empty home, it's him. It's always been him.

(That's why Sasuke avoided him. Funny, how for years he asked for his brother to teach him something and so he taught Sasuke how to fear bonds. That his greatest weakness with always be his bonds, that overcoming them is the only thing he needs to do to get stronger. That he just needs the _hatred_ for it.

Itachi had told him once that it's okay to hate him. It makes Sasuke sick to think that his brother had given him his _approval_ to despise him. It makes him sick that in the end, he has never been able to hate _enough_.)  
  
But here's something Naruto would never know: he would never know what it's like to have a family, what it's like to lose them in one night. He doesn't know what it's like to miss the sound of someone's breathing (his mother breathed light, his father breathed as if every breath was a sigh). He doesn't know what it's like to remember the smell of someone and feel how it cuts your heart open, how it never heals. He doesn't know all useless memories that clog his brain; the memories of how his mother's footsteps went (light and periodic, she always paced around the house), how her food tasted, or how his father's silence was his comfort.

He would never know how hard it is to work for a father's approval, how kind and careful a mother is, how a brother will always be there, whether you want him there or not.  
  
Naruto would never know that feeling; would never know how painful each memory is, how much the want _hurts_. Naruto never had a family; Sasuke did and he lost them to his own brother.  
  
Naruto would never know how the anger manifests in him; how bright the fire you create can burn.  
  
So he shows him, because death is a man's first instinct if it's all he's ever known.  
  
-

##### -xvi.

  
When Sasuke is seven years old, his elder brother stares him down with the blood of his kin on his hands and tells him that he's the one to kill him in cold blood.  
  
(Because, at age thirteen, they both learn that when a man offers peace, you give him war.)  
  
He tells him that if he ever wants to avenge the Clan, he must harness all the hatred in him and direct it towards him. He tells him that if he ever wants to go against him in battle, he must have the same eyes as him. (The Curse of Hatred, they had called it in the old scroll he read shortly after he first woke up after the massacre.)  
  
He tells him to kill his best friend, only then he could stand a chance against him.  
  
(Sasuke was advised at age seven by his father, who would only die days later, to never walk his brother's path.)  
  
(Every night, Sasuke prays for forgiveness.)  
  
-

##### xviii.

  
Naruto floats lifelessly in the river's head.  
  
Sasuke crawls up from the mud and dirt, feeling sick to his stomach. The skin feels as it is its own shell of sand, made out of fragile ice mirrors. He's unraveling at the seams.  
  
He wants to get away, he wants this to _stop_. He wishes reality would stop and change, he wishes it for it to collapse on itself and perish. His chest hurts as if someone shoved their own hand in him because grief is its own curse but it's also pain; it's the multifaceted Mother Earth's worst side — she is the abnormal and the beauty, she is also the hurt. She is the suffering, the ache, and the dead.  
  
(She is the only thing keeping him alive and all the things that make him want to die.)  
  
As he stands up on shaky legs, a ghost rises up behind him.  
  
(Sasuke had stared at Naruto in wonderment two months ago because he had an inhuman amount of chakra — it seeped out of his skin and burned yellow, orange, and red.)  
  
-

##### -xvii.

  
Itachi had always said that he loved his brother; then he said once that he never did.  
  
(Only one of those sentences are true. Here's how to eliminate answers: Sasuke believes in the lie for almost ten years.)  
  
(Because Itachi was thirteen years old when he tries to negotiate peace but assigned to end his bloodline instead. When he is six years old, he sees the aftermath of war and when he holds his baby brother in his arms, he promises to protect him. He's thirteen years old and he sees his best friend kill himself because death is _always_ man's first option when it's all they've ever known.  
  
Itachi is thirteen years old when his mother tells him she's proud of him, right before her blood splatters the floor. Itachi is thirteen years old when he promises one last time to protect his brother. Itachi is thirteen years old when he cries when he sees how both his parents still hold each other in death.

Itachi had always felt _too much_ to lie properly. So, he shuts all of his emotions down. Then, even Sasuke couldn't tell from his truths and lies anymore.

You can't train emotionless. You just have to experience _too much_.)  
  
Sasuke collapses.  
  
(When Sasuke was seven years old, he woke up in a white room and felt red on his skin — something he felt like he could never wash out.)  
  
-

##### xix.

  
For the Curse of Heaven, you have to go hell and back.  
  
Sasuke is thirteen years old when he kills his best friend, except he doesn't die. He comes back harder because Sasuke always had liked to see his anger light up like a firework. He comes back and Sasuke feels as though something did die, something in himself.  
  
Naruto grew so much in so little time that he made Sasuke feel inferior at times. He grew so much as Sasuke stayed the same. Naruto grew so much that his body couldn't contain it, so he grew on Sasuke; he became someone Sasuke is afraid of having. (Zabuza dies a bittersweet death next to Haku, who cared too much for someone precious to them. Sasuke had laid in Naruto's arm, bleeding from inside outside because his body moved without thinking. He cracks like he's his own ice mirror, and those cracks had always stayed. And, they grew.)  
  
Naruto lays on the mud and dirt he had crawled up from. Because to go to hell and come back, you crawl up from the core of Mother Earth, who has all sides of beauty and hideous and she has one side just for you.  
  
Orochimaru gives a promise, he gives him a purpose. He gives him power, he gives him heaven and hell that bleed down together.  
  
(Because, even in mixed blood, it always stays crimson in the end.)  
  
He has no other choice.  
  
( _Don't follow the footsteps of your brother,_ his father had said, days before his death, staring down at his youngest son with expectation.)  
  
Sasuke collapses, alongside with his scratched hitai-ate.  
  
He's always in pain — it's a ghost that haunts him and lingers in the corners of his bones. He kneels down above his best friend and stares down at Naruto's bruised and bloody face; he watches how the rain pours down on his face and body, washing away the blood to reveal _just_ Naruto. He feels how the pressure and pounding of water on him overwhelms him.  
  
He stares down at Naruto.  
  
(Sasuke was seven years old when rain pounded down his body when he is told that he needs to kill his best friend if he ever wanted to avenge his clan. Sasuke was six years old when his brother slept with him outside and under the stars, Itachi told him that Sasuke was just like him.)  
  
He leaves.  
  
(For six years, Sasuke had prayed for his father's forgiveness.)  
  
-

##### -xviii.

Itachi is twelve years old when the sun rises.  
  
Their beds are placed outside, in the cold morning air because Itachi told his brother that they could sleep under the stars. Itachi could never say no, he could never deny his brother's happiness.  
  
Sasuke sleeps chaotically, his arms and legs thrown over his brother. He sleeps silently. Itachi threads carefully out of his brother's crushing grab until he's sitting up with Sasuke's head on his lap. The birds sing their morning tunes and Itachi feels how the cold air makes the hair on his arms stand up.  
  
Itachi holds his brother close and whispers in the silence to the morning dew that he loves him. He tells him that he loves him because, at age six, he saw a mountain of corpses and promised to protect his brother from the dark.  
  
He tells his brother he loves him and when he looks down, his brother sleeps peacefully.  
  
His brother wakes up alone.  
  
(Itachi Uchiha dies like this: he does not die by his brother's hands. No, he dies at his feet because he's been dead long before his brother ever gets to take his life. It's a disease that kills him inside out; he dies pressing his fingers against his brother's head one last time. He dies years after his due date because he only kept himself alive enough as he, too, had been waiting to kill by his brother's sword. To die without his sword in hand because Itachi Uchiha doesn't deserve the nobility of an Uchiha's peaceful afterlife.

Itachi has ghost hands. When Sasuke was young, he asked himself what Itachi would steal. Itachi wouldn't steal anything; he couldn't because there's nothing left to steal. It's always been just them.

  
He kept himself alive because a brother's love is a worse curse than a brother's grief.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hiraeth is a Welsh word which means 'nostalgia', or, more commonly, 'homesickness'. Many Welsh people claim 'hiraeth' is a word which cannot be translated, meaning more than solely "missing something" or "missing home." To some, it implies the meaning of missing a time, an era, or a person. It is associated with the bittersweet memory of missing something or someone while being grateful for that/their existence. [(via)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiraeth)
> 
>  
> 
> [my carrd.co](https://somebody.carrd.co/)


End file.
